Getting there..

Tonight I did the spears , quivers and scabbards that were still unpainted.

They are nearly finished… some highlights to sort out and a quick once over to see if there are any glaring errors. Bases to finish. I was going to paint them, but to be honest I like them the way they are. I will add flock and tufts but leave the sand as is.

A couple more random pictures…

Tonight’s painting was brought to you by YouTube, the internet was stable enough to watch a couple of documentaries on the Mongols.

Once these are done I will blast on with the medium cavalry, then the heavies as these are already glued to their bases. After that onto the civilians and foot archers.

I have roughly the same again to paint, if not slightly more.

Now the pondering… most things I have read gave the armoured troops armour as covered with pitch, lots of black. Part of me wants a bit of colour in. Therefore I feel a bit more research is required.

Before I got down to painting I watched the remake of Dad’s Army. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The casting for the different parts was pretty much inspired, with the possible exception of Fraser, who for some reason to me seemed out of kilter. Maybe his accent wasn’t as strong as the original John Laurie. The vicar was the spitting image of the original. My next task is to see who he is. The best nod to the original was having Ian Lavender (the original Pike) as a member of the HQ.

I really worried about how they might spoil my childhood memories of me and my brother sitting with my dad, who had actually been in the Home Guard. He would tell us about their escapades and how the platoon had a load of ex soldiers in it who were good at their jobs

I needn’t have worried!

My dad front row and grandad second row.

This is the Greenside Home Guard round about 1944. Unfortunately my dad’s eyesight and memory were going by time we found this. Sadly the few names we did have, which was about half, were lost when my mother passed away.

It reminds me of the line in the ‘Green Fields of France’

Or are you a stranger without even a name, 
Enclosed in forever behind the glass frame, 
In an old photograph, torn, battered and stained, 
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame? 

And that’s me all emotional again …